Building Your Brand

Creative (with Guests Jesse McMillin & Michael Dubin)

Building Your Brand

Lesson 4 of 12

Creative (with Guests Jesse McMillin & Michael Dubin)

Lesson Info

Creative (with Guests Jesse McMillin & Michael Dubin)

Excited to introduce my good friend jesse jesse is the design director at virgin america and you've been there for five years now five years yeah five years so but we actually go back probably I hate to say it at least ten years it might even be a little bit more than that e yeah, well what? Jesse was actually just saying that he has a son that's going off to college next year so he's older than he looks and I'm older than I look but so we met we worked at an ad agency when I went to virgin america I knew that I needed to have a strong creative partner there and that part of building a brand it's really having amazing creative that's integrated and somebody that can understand not on lee kind of print creative anomaly line creative but like a hole full experience and so I think you were like in amsterdam I don't know where you were but I tracked him down and I was like jesse oh my god, I'm going to virgin america this airline you need to come and work with me and you remember that yeah...

I had just moved back from amsterdam um I had been over there for a few years working with nike their european headquarters is there and I think that testament to the power of networking I had come back and you heard through the grapevine someone that we knew in common, that I was back in town and got back in touch with me and that's, how I ended up a virgin, and yet so tell me about your role at virgin. Now, like, what are you doing now? Well, I basically oversee everything that the airline does creatively, so on dh that's anything from things happening inside the plane, whether it's on the entertainment system or or literally, physically with the plane itself, would lighting materials, things that we're doing and updating all the time to then all of the communication that the brand does, whether it's externally, tio, our guests, or even internally tio teammates s o just I I oversee and coordinate everything that's being done, whether it's literally designing things myself for connecting the right teams and the right external creative partners on bringing them in and getting them into the process of creating whatever it is we need to do. Great, great. So we're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about the power of creativity and how that all kind of ladders up to a brand and that a lot of times there's, you know, people like jesse and also a science behind it module one today we talked about kind of the funnel tests where you want to go. But it's people like jesse that are bringing brands toe life and really understanding the full experience before we go into that, I just want to talk about a couple of the resource is in the book we put ah, whole bunch of things in terms of different places that you go for designs for logos, for stock footage, for clippers. I know that as entrepreneurs, a lot of times you don't have the benefit to hire an ad agency to do the work, so we have put kind of I guess I would say the hacker list of where you could go to do it yourself in the book, but today we're going to talk about either doing it yourself or working with someone, how to get great creative and kind of what is behind having really defined and an interesting brand. A couple of the things that I'm going to talk about first, the first one is an exercise called a brand audit, then we're going to talk about style grant died, create a brief mood boards and wire frames, so these are all different tools that we're going to talk about in this module and then also we're going to talk about good and bad examples of creative, and we're going to our skype call with mike from dollar shave club, so it's going to be a fun hour. To start out the brand audit what I do recommend to a lot of the companies that I work with is when you're starting out all the sudden you might think, well, what does my brand look like? What are all the materials in a simple way to actually start doing this is to take a room maybe it's ah a wall in your in your house maybe it's in the kitchen and actually put everything up on the wall print out brochures this catalog, whatever you have print out part of the magazine but put up and start to get an audit of how things look and feel and are you consistent and are you integrated? I know that we used to do more rooms all the time that ad agencies would start to kind of look at like the tone and the look in the field, but what happens when you're growing a business quickly is that you may be working on the website someone else might be doing sales materials over here that you can quickly have your communications become disjointed. And so as soon as you can do an audit and then think about that think back to your funnel that we did earlier this morning what you're presenting, does it really represent the brand that you want to have be forward? So jesse, I'm so glad that you're here you can jump in at any time but what I think there's some kind of principles, and I'd love to get your comments on this, too, but just branding and creative, I think that some of the best ideas, they're very transparent, they're honest aa lot of times they're the first in the category, maybe their unexpected it's something that you you didn't think that you would see simple. I think a lot of times good, creative is very simple, it's probably focusing on one message instead of multiple multiple messages to me, that's almost one of the most important, I think, on this list, I think simple ideas air always overlooked it seems like a lot of times, even when you're thinking of a simple idea, I think you might second guess yourself and think, oh, well, this isn't interesting enough or not complex enough or, you know, are people going to think this is that great? And I think a lot of times, if you look at some of the greatest brands out there, they're the ones that are able to take an idea and refine it down and strip away all the clutter and really show something that's kind of at the core on, so I think simplicity and really, um, using that as an exercise toe define things is something that's really important for for a great idea? So if somebody wanted to look at their idea and kind of bring it down to its core to make sure it's simple, what kind of process would you go through to make sure that you had a simple, clear idea? I mean, it it's kind of different, probably depending on what what you're looking at. But I think really just trying to be, um, the best editor you, khun b and sometimes I think that's bringing in somebody that, you know, maybe is looking at something with fresh eyes or that you feel like is a trusted adviser that you can really take their feedback and just being, you know, I think it's and it's difficult, but being as ruthless as you can, I think you really just need to strip away things and say, is this necessary? You know, is does this word necessary? Is this color necessary? Is the shape necessary? Like, are these things really communicating what I want them to? Or they just kind of extraneous elements that are almost like a cloud of fluff around the idea and are limiting someone being able to connect right to it? And I think, um being ruthless, I think which is hard to do but and again, sometimes that's we're bringing someone in from the outside can be really helpful work they might not be as precious with the idea they might be able to just come in and cut straight to the heart and say, hey, you know, there's, something really great here at the core and and it's about, you know, removing all this clutter and cleaning the attic out to be able to actually see it right? That reminds me I was in film school and I was a documentary filmmaker, and I remember an exercise that our professor at us do where we were doing a short film, and it was like a thirteen minute film, and they basically said, do your thirteen minute cutting handed in and, you know, we all thought we were done, and we were all in love with our thirty minute films, and then the next day, they said, well, by the way, now you have to cut it down to seven minutes, and it was like, all right, god, how could I cut thirteen minutes down to seven? But that process of actually going through what's actually necessary in the story? Like you, we ended up all with better films it was hard to get there because you're like, well, I don't want to give up on this and I listen love with it, but I like your idea of editing down in paring down yeah it's funny reminds me of something that happens to me frequently when I'm working on stuff and it's actually not a good habit to get into but you know, as as a designer, a lot of times you're working and you know you're getting into the stone where you're almost forgetting what you're doing and you're working, working, working and you're forgetting to save your work and and that at a certain point your machine can crash and you lose all of this stuff that you've done you're like, oh my god, you know, how am I gonna have to hours or days however long it's been but then having to go back and actually start from zero and recreate something because you know where you went and then you're able to kind of strip those things because you're like that now I did all these things that we're kind of done the first time and if you have to do it again, so I think also that maybe giving yourself that exercise of you know, if I had to start from scratch if I had to cut something in half you know what would I really do at that point which is really hard when you're in the process but if it if it was like forced upon you what would you do at that point? It can be kind of an interesting exercise right? How do you feel about uh being a motive? I mean, I think that great creative is going to give you some kind of reaction or feeling or thought what's your thought on emotion humor I mean I think it's really important I think a lot of brands now I think don't even consider themselves delivering messages as much as they do creating experiences I think that's like uh you'll hear that a lot if you talk to marketers and brand people because I think that's what most they see most of their consumers are looking for you people are hit with so many messages in so many visuals and so many things now we're constantly it's funny if you ever go out with friends and people and you take a minute and to step away and look at the group almost everybody is you know, at some point constantly on their phones or on a screen somewhere and it's like this uh kind of short attention span I think that we have now where it's where we're constantly moving from one thing to the next multitasking and doing all this stuff I think it's those really a motive experiences that people that that kind of break things and stop you and kind of make you go ok well this is something interesting I should pay attention great great I also have being effective and being measurable now those air kind of counter to the motive but because a lot of creative is online we certainly contract things we can see what's effective and see what's working what's not working one thing I have said with some of the clients that I advise is that in your culture is that you need to make sure that the measurement in the data doesn't overpower the ideas and the creativity how are you within virgin america keeping kind of the creativity and the pureness of idea to the forefront and not letting kind of numbers numbers, numbers I mean it's definitely a challenge I would say for sure um what's good about virgin american maybe not all brands have this so it's easier for us maybe then then everyone else I think is that if you if inherently your brand has this sense of kind of a reverence and fun and creativity at its core um it's a lot easier to justify that it kind of at the same time as you're justifying the need for metrics and measurement and all that that kind of a thing um and and I think you know what we see with the stuff that we do is that those creative messages really resonate if they're done well and they really are a lot of times the more effective one and I think it's just about making sure that you document that and track it. Another thing I'm thinking about with the idea of measurement is, you know, for a creative person it's it's also I think sometimes about looking at how can you take that thing that might not be your ideal might not feel like we have to track this or measurement that doesn't feel great it flip that on its head and use it as an advantage. For example, you know, with online work aa lot of times testing variations or versions of something that, you know, two headlines against each other, two types of creative against each other, you know where that might give the creative person ah reason or rational say, hey, I had these two ideas to begin with hey let's, test him against each other ah and produce both you know where maybe you would have only normally done one. So I think trying to find ways where you can use that to your advantage used the idea of data and metrics to help support good work and not as as a barrier to doing it right great, great before we move on any questions that you guys have before we keep going, okay, so favorite creative can you think of some creative that you love either when you were at virgin america something that you have been really excited about? Ho man that's a tough one favorite creative? I mean, I'm so inspired by so many things all the time I was actually just watching a video the other day that I thought was totally genius and it's not necessary that it was creatively that great, but just I loved how it kind of took storm and maybe somebody has heard of this in the audience, I don't know, but it was ah video done by one of the shows on comedy central, and it was like a little pig that saved a goat in this saved to go in this petting zoo like pool, and the whole thing was actually this elaborately produced video by comedy central, but they had put the video on youtube kind of clandestine and didn't say anything about it and like within hours, it was getting like, you know, tons of views and then overnight it actually ended up getting picked up by all of the major news organizations and the comedy central team just didn't say anything let it keep going and this that idea that, you know, you never know what's going to take off and something that you know, could be really elaborately done and not be actually this kind of really viral thing can end up going completely viral and so I think it's really just always trying stuff and putting things out there and and maybe being being not afraid to put it out there secretly and I think a lot of times people think, oh, well, we have to shout this from the rooftops, but sometimes, you know, doing something and letting it kind of have a life of its own is actually a lot smarter I love that I mean, I think that comes back to doing some of the first right and being simple and memorable like it's unexpected so I love that emily did you come up with the video that virgin plays well, you're being seated and the safety video we actually worked with an animation that was really that it makes me want to watch it, whereas for other airlines I'm like, what are they saying? You know, yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the things the safety video to me really represents an opportunity where it's something that everyone is going to see, you know, every every person that flies virgin america is going to have to watch that video and and taking it not for granted, you know, find normally a lot of airlines would look at that and go ok, well, we have this super serious and this is about safety but at the end of day a lot of people don't even watch those videos anymore and so it's making them fun and interesting actually a we've had a lot of success with our safety video and we're actually thinking about doing a second version something kind of refreshing it and having a lot of fun with it but um air new zealand actually I don't know if you ever have a chance to check out stuff that they're doing they're constantly doing crazy body painted they tend to dig their say so they did what they did flight attendants and pilots nude like with their bodies painted that kind of like magazine style which I remember saying it and the guys brilliant the idea was the bare essentials of safety and so like just such a funny video they followed that up last year I think sometime kind of in partnership with the lord of the rings the hobbit movie coming out they did ah safety video that was all themed actually had peter jackson did a cameo in it and got millions of views these videos where they had like hobbits in the plane and like it was like, I think it was like welcome to the middle or safety or something like that was this hilarious and then recently they've actually just done another one ah which is bear grylls the english kind of outdoor guy and they have him doing this whole safety spiel like actually out in the wilderness in new zealand is amazing but really fun stuff I love that though because they're creating memorable brand experiences and that's what we're talking about is building a brand and if they wanted to take thie you know the low price all these elements still matter they could have the boring safety video but it comes back to fighting mediocrity doing things better well and I think also it with that too it's it's an area that's unique to them yeah uh car company or ah clothing manufacturer doesn't have the idea of a safety video right? So it's it's something that's unique to them to their industry and again I think finding those places for a first you know is something that you might not I think there's one right there in front of you but there could be so it's just looking for those opportunities right? Taking those moments that might be boring and turning them into opportunities. I love that I haven't flown virgin and years and I can still remember that video and it sticks out in my mind as being like I love I love the airline because of things like that that's great well let's talk about immigration because this is something that I think is really important for a brand is to have everything we talked about the audit but kind of integrating and having one look one voice one feel I did notice that you guys have a new lounge at l a x which is is beautiful but to me I looked at it and I thought wow, the lounge that you created feels like the interior experience of the airline like it feels like you're inside the cabin you've got the same color palette some of the mood lighting, some of the same accents but with so many pieces going on, how do you keep things integrated like what? What are the ways that you would recommend for people to keep kind of a consistent look and feel across the brand? You know, I think it's again kind of going back to what we're talking about with simplicity I guess um tryingto be as ruthless as possible and I say that in kind of caveat ing it in the sense that you also want to leave room for creativity and leave room for these kind of spontaneous things to happen but but you know, I think a lot of times it's easy to kind of just especially the longer you go on as a brand to kind of accumulate and add new things and you know, this was boring we did that last year let's try something new but I think with the brand audit especially that could be a really nice thing even for a brand that's been around forever to kind of look at what you've done to go you know we really straight along this path and come back and find the core elements that really are the things that you feel like best defined the brand and and keeping it simple again I think it is something that's that's important to do um with virgin it's easy because you know we have really red is like one of the prime colors that all the virgin brands around the globe use and it's something that really unified I think the virgin brand in general and it's what's interesting is it's actually a color that's not really unique ahs faras brands go I mean if you think about target um if you think about bank of america there's a lot of brands that use the color red is kind of this signifier but I think it's in the way they use it in the way that you do things to that's important I think getting to the idea of things being original and first you know it doesn't always have to be something that's never been done it can be the way you do it I think about the ipod you know, there were other music players out there it wasn't that it was the first music player ever it was just done in a really great way on dh so I think that's another thing to keep in mind is too don't you just focus on your own vision and voice and home that in and simplify that? And we find that to the elements that are most important? Great, great. We talked a little bit in module one this morning about brand book and a funnel test, but you just referenced the color red, and I actually have pulled a page from a virgin style guide. You can't read the copy here, but what I wanted to talk about, and we reference this earlier, is that, you know, there's all these virgin companies. This is one page out of probably a fifty page style guide where it talks about how the red should be when it's on metal, how it should be when it's on plastic, what the pms color is, what if you're doing a four color process? What if you're doing a gloss? It's very, very deliberate so that you have consistency across all these companies now for a small business, should you be thinking about that? Like, if you have a logo that's in a certain color, how far do you need to go when you're just starting out? Well, I mean, I don't think you want a labor over it where it becomes something that is impeding you kind of doing what you need to do, but I think for a small business that's probably even easier than for a big one um I know when I worked at nike which is a immense company I mean, there have offices in almost every country in the world uh gloat really a global brand and, uh, you know, their style guide is like this, you know, huge bible and and they're really strict about it and in a lot of ways because they're so big it's hard to keep that big of a disparate kind entity in line, so I think with a smaller brand or company it's actually even a lot of times easier toe to implement a style guide or to keep things tighter because you don't have as many moving parts and not as many people kind of in the mix. So I think it's a really important thing I would I would recommend it I think thing is to just not feel like it has to be this huge, expensive undertaking which a lot of times style guide or branding kind of kit can be that, you know, I mean there's there's firms all over the world that just do that they just specialize in creating those those tools so um do not worry that like you're doing it wrong if you have an internal team that's just kind of trying to do that exercise themselves, I think that's okay, it's just the fact that you're doing it and that you're putting that is a priority I think is as important as anything else when I think you can probably start with you know your fonts, the colors, pms chips, you know, kind of the basics how your logo looks in black and white in color. I kind of kind of the symbols and a one sheet right as it is kind of a basic list, you know? And I think it probably a lot of times helps toe have you know, whether it's a designer or ah, you know, some some person who is kind of your go to creative person, they could even be somebody that's external um but tohave kind of one voice at least in the beginning where those things were running through this I think that's a lot of times where people run into problems is when there isn't really a chief and there's too many uh, kind of people that are all having a voice and nothing's ever getting done. So I think to really identify who is the person that's going to own, um, the brand, so to speak and make sure that that they're given enough, um and a flea way to really be able toe to set those things and stoning to make sure that that they're followed right now with that we've been talking a lot about the visual aspects of the brand and what it feels and looks like but I also think that copy and how atonality of copy really can impact what a company kind of sounds like and feels like one headline that I remember that we had for a billboard that was for chicago we were flying to chicago was flying to the windy city no longer blows right? You have that right has so you know, that obviously has atonality where it's kind of year reverend it makes you laugh like a little bit of a wink but it feels very virgin asked and so how do you keep consistency with copy? Because that's that's a really hard thing and a lot of people are writing lots of blog's lots of content, lots of storytelling is it just something we have to know the tone of voice or yeah I mean, I think one of the places you start is no who's writing for you on driving is such a complex I mean, I'm definitely not a writer myself and I really appreciate a talented writer because they can make the most complex things sound brilliant and witty and simple and easy to get and that's big job so I think knowing who's kind of writing for you and making sure that they understand the tone of voice um is definitely really important um you know and I and I think it just it really depends on what your tone of voice is you know I think to keep it consistent making sure that's really clear and that people know you know whether it's you know if if you're a witty brand and that kind of emotive fund where the thing is is what you want to convey a cz your image than making sure that everybody knows that and it's clear a lot of times as part of a style guide or brandon kit just a one pager about tone of voice and who that brand is you can't even boil it down a lot of times into almost like a character profile like our brand is x and and it's you know give it a kind of personified give it human attributes so that someone can not only hear that voice but see who that person is like put kind of an image to this personality you know we used to do that at the ad agency we would go through an exercise if the brand was a car what car would it be if it was you know a soda what would it be and so that you could actually then convey to people it's just another exercise other than a mood board to try to explain it so moving on to another concept we talked a little bit about brand strategy earlier today but I do think having brand strategy kind of inform your creative is really important and for us one of the examples that I gave was that first year for virgin america our strategy was all about visual demonstration that we wanted to try to show the cabin as much as possible so when I'm thinking about a brand strategy and I'd love to get your opinion on it but I look at it kind of as the doorway and it's like our road map how are we going to explain our company but it's also kind of the box that I would give to the creative and say this is what we're trying to accomplish and this is a sell you know, the same things that we were saying about creative I would look at it and say you know isn't believable are you over promising are you under promising danu proud of business words at a tech company you can't guarantee fixing things you know immediately but you can say that you can watch this and get a solution so figuring out what is the strategy that actually works that you can then launch crate about so what do you look for for a good strategy to make creative you know I think for for creative strategically you want things to to really be to be again I mean it's we keep coming back to the simple thing and hopefully that's not kind of too repetitive but I think it's simplicity and clarity for me are such important things and as far as strategy goes you know if the strategy is clear and simple a lot of times in advertising you know you have the elevator pitch kind of idea where it's like can you boil that idea down into this really simple thing that someone can get you know in the two minutes that you're going to be in the elevator with them and I think you know, taking that approach to strategy to or it's like how can this really be boiled down and made so simple that it's able to be action against you know, it's it's simple enough for a creative person to look at it and go ok, well I'm going to be ableto meet that strategy because it's really clear and I know I have to hit these three things like you said is it is it about you know that we're going to be you know we might not be able to deliver tomorrow but we know we'll be able to deliver a hundred percent of the time and so it's like boeing those things down and something that's really easy to understand and where those bullet points you know don't go on for pages and pages it's like find the three most important things I think a lot of times people want to be able to make everything do everything for everybody right and that's like the worst just a trap that you can ever get yourself into because you're never going to be able to make everybody happy so well a couple strategies that I can recall from earlier in my career one was working on snapple natural beverages when that launched and the creative strategy that we had was you love us we love you back because it was all about consumer love for the company so people would write in letters and then the campaign would always answer so that was what we used this to filter you love us we love you back another one that I could remember was for a bank and the strategy was coaching and so basically the communication everything that you looked at was supposed to give you the feeling of winning points or getting points so it was that kind of that rush right? So it was a word that describe that feeling that you get so when you buy the flowers was it for love or wasn't for the points you know coaching so the strategy doesn't need to be communicated but it needs to be behind the idea ok? The other thing that is great is we've talked a little bit there are some lower cost ways to test things now in the past strategies he would test them against focus groups maybe anna matics they're very expensive now you can start doing things with survey monkey could do things that are informal you can also use some social media research just kind of get some ideas out there, so I think that there are more unique ways to get feedback on creative and then I think the other thing that's really happened over time is that in the past my perception was that creative had to be like, you know, it was very high end very finished and that people are much more accepting now because we're using iphones to shoot videos you know, we're not shooting on film all the time anymore like there's a tolerance for more experimentation with creativity and so I think you can test and learn and do a little our course, you know, I mean, I think I mean, just the fact that people's viewing habits have changed so much and and that's what I think really affected I remember reading an article a while ago, uh saying you know, the move from the printed world to the digital world I was really changing things for designers a lot because that everyone was so much more used to colors being really intense because they were looking at things on a screen versus looking at printed material that was something that you could touch and feel, um and that that was really changing the way people design things because they were now having to adjust what they did to fit with people's you know how they were reading things now and I think you know, that's something that's really interesting about how things change and, you know, now people watch youtube videos on their phone and that quality is good enough, you know? So do we have a question we dio of this question is exactly what you're talking about, um, and so the steve bargain says berg out says seems like kids and teens are all on youtube constantly on dh don't want to read much more than one hundred forty characters at a time, while video allows us to be more creative and it is more expensive to produce or can be our small businesses missing out if they aren't creating cool and creative video marketing into how many tips for small businesses and video marketing I definitely think that you're missing out if you're not doing video content, it's it's the way people are communicating more and more uh, yeah, I even remember again hearing an npr, uh show saying that more kids now know how to and are used to making ah video as a means of communicating that and they are even at writing a letter anymore. And so I mean, that just shows you I think, how how times are changing and the importance of video and immediacy of it too, I think is the other thing that it's just it's something that can be you know, I was at a forum a few weeks ago about video on and, you know, they were talking about a lot of the they had a lot of these youtube kind of channel owners, and they were saying that it was intense to have to always keep up with video because people want things that are current, you can't just put one video up and let it languish for a year anymore. You have to have new video content all the time because that's what's keeping people coming back and staying in tree and so I think, you know, I think that the trap that people get into is again thinking that every video that they produce has to be this million dollar thing high gloss quality on I don't think that's necessarily true, I think it's more about making videos interesting, and I was even gonna relate it back to something, you know, you were talking about about a survey, uh, and, you know, a lot of times, stuff like that would be something that people would overlook and think, oh, that doesn't need to be creative at all. Why would we invest any time making that fun? And you want someone to do it, though you want someone to take the time to go through it and if it was fun, they would probably want to do it ten times more than they would if it's just this dry, boring survey that's like, you know, fill out these ten questions and then go and, you know, jump off a cliff for whatever so it's like, I think you really have to put take those opportunities little things can be the most impactful sometimes I love that mean video it's so share a bill now also, which is great, and the other thing I'm seeing a lot is people creating e books that they're sharing on social media too, you know, increase their expertise in a certain category so that's another way that there's just so much sharing going on and a lot of free content, we were just talking with our legal adviser, holland, who was talking about they got this whole section that's all really content, but it is part of their brand now, so I think depending on what your business is, if you're a photographer, you might want to have a bunch of resource is about great places to get re touching or maybe there's a book on, you know how to do great lighting like things like that can improve your credibility and kind of your brand positioning, she really need to think about what you want to accomplish. I put together just a list of things that I used to like to see on a creative brief when I was working with people, so I'd want to know the strategy and kind of the core attributes and also what we were trying to accomplish with the communication either you know the video or whatever we're making but the project information if you're launching a new product what's different what are the benefits? The target audience is so important that the right person the right time with the right medium you hear that all the time in marketing the creative strategy, the tone we talked a lot about tone earlier today do we want to be friendly? Do we want to be irreverent on dh then kind of the goals? Another thing that was always really important was budget and then this brief I always like to see them less than one page because you don't want to be like, overwhelmed and get into analysis paralysis now as a small business owner, having a creative brief may seem like you know, extra steps and extra work, but if you go through this and you make yourself answer the questions, who is my audience? What am I trying to accomplish? Chances are is that you're probably gonna have better defined creative and more success instead of trying to do all things for all people yeah, I mean I think no matter how small you are, I think a creative brief is probably one of the most important parts of the process that you can have um I think you end up saving a lot of time and money if you start off with a really tight, creative brief and get everybody who needs to make decisions in the room at the same time I think that's one of the goals of the creative brief is to really make sure everyone's heads are on the same page and that that you're all kind of nodding to the same drumbeat and and I think a good creative brief will do that great. Okay, so creative development one thing that I also thinks really important in creative development is trying to check in as much as possible because we know that time is money and revisions our money, and we hate that when it's like, oh, my gosh, I need to redo this. We do that and so different things that you can do, you obviously could have meetings with your team, but you can use your mood boards, wire frames, tissue sessions, comp ads and also learning to embrace feedback, so I have some samples of these things, but these are things that I was working on. This is a wire frame for an infographic that I was doing, and this is a mood board force said infographic so it's a great way to you know start using these tools before you go all the way to final production on something because if you're spending let's say hypothetically a hundred dollars an hour one hundred fifty dollars an hour it's better to have the clarity of front eso in my case when I'm doing creative cause I'm lucky I still have friends like jesse I'll say hey what do you think about this move board what doesn't make it you know what was the feeling that you get from this and it could be a good steppingstone so these are just two examples of tools that are good for check ins um embracing feedback so this is actually my book cover which jesse started and he designed it for me so we started over here and got all the feedback on ended up over there but the point is is that I think that as a creative either photographer designer sometimes even if you're doing a magazine taking that feedback until you get used to it can be really hard I'm sure with the t shirt designs sometimes you're getting feedback but so we ended up I think in a really good place but how is that process for you we kept getting feedback from the publisher it was like jesse I'm going back for you uh you know I think for me the feedback stages always I think it's one of the funders parts of the design process because as a designer I think you can you can go around in your head endlessly you can always make something better on so did get some type of feedback from the outside world. Uh, it can really help shape into find an idea and a lot of times it's those boundaries in that box getting tighter, that makes the best ideas come out. Uh, so, you know, I think it's just knowing for me, one of the big things is knowing when to give, you know, I think is one of the most important things toe learn as a creative person is and knowing when your voice needs to be heard and when it's ok to kind of be flexible and take that feedback and change and tweak things, uh, which is it's a fine line? It's not not always easy to do, but right? Right? Well, one thing that you just said was kind of how to give and take and how to get things done, and I'm going to call it creative hacking. I know everyone's using the phrase hacking these days, but I do think that, you know, again, as a small business, we need to look at what are the ways that we can get things done and not spend tons of money, and you are the king of pulling in favors looking for you know solutions how can we use things one example is I have a girlfriend who has a handbag company and recently she posted this great shot of a model with a handbag I was like wow, that looks really good said did you do like a photo shoot she said no I got the photo from I photo and then you know photo shopped in the bag put in a sad and it was beautiful so you know there's obviously their stock photos there's crowd sourced aren't a lot of people are using ninety nine designs for crowdsourcing templates their stock music I mean a great ideas and really have to break the bank but tell me like what are you doing? What are some of your tips and tricks rare you're saving money to try to get a good idea out there ah, one of the biggest things I think that at virgin america anyway that we do tow kind of keep doing amazing work but um but get it done for not as much money is this is the big secret everybody's waiting for right now. All right um this is going to be such a letdown, I think keeping keeping the project's fun you know, I think to me is like one of the most important things I think making sure that the project is really exciting and fun from the get go ng a lot of times you're going to be able to get people to participate and go beyond where they would have gone, whether it's a photographer, director or an illustrator or whatever it is, if you can tap into what that creative person wants to get out of the project and make sure that you protect that and guard it a lot of times you're gonna get them to go ten times farther and do things for a lot less than they would if you were kind of giving them this really boring project and saying you have to do this, you have to do that this is going to suck as a process, then somebody doesn't even want a party this painting nine add to and bring what they can do to table, so I think that's really important look, so I have a question actually wantto kind of share some tips that I've learned with the magazine we have to have a thousand pictures every single month, and then our blawg constantly and we're under like, tight watch people watch us closely because we're a publication for what we use and and we have photographers who take great photos and it's great, you know that we can use those but there's it's not always enough, so um what I found is sometimes I'll search online and find a photographer, and I like the photo and I'll just contact the photographer and asked them if I can use a photo I've gotten yes one hundred percent of the time because they want to be in the publication and then I get a release and then they let me use their photo and I didn't pay for it I've also um flicker of course has their creative comments but you still have to you know, attributes the you know the artists but those air free options so for me, who doesn't have a budget you know and I'm sure a lot of people you know, watching this probably are in the same boat as me and not a virgin america where you know, they have a little bit more of a budget but those air, some free things that I've been able to do and and photographers air generally willing if if you're going tio give them something in return you know, you have to offer something that goes back to the bartering you mentioned earlier yeah that's not your valuing the relationship and seeing you know, what can we do to support each other and you're giving them exposure and potential work? So I love those ideas so you know another thing that I do think is important about ideas and you have this with the magazine obviously each month you're doing a new issue but looking for ideas and not only are emotional but ideas that have legs I mean the ones that I can think of right now you know absolute the absolut bottle where every time we'd see an ad they do a new interpretation of the absolut bottle but it's really nice when a big idea can actually you know, go farther than just one execution things that air extendable and then things that you're like really passionate about like if you come up with that idea and it may be something that's really simple and good but like you're really excited about it that could be a great big idea I think that's super important I mean I mean I think that's a lot of times what can make an idea great is that the people behind it really believe in it and her passion about it you know, I think again apple for me is a great example that obviously beautiful and amazingly designed products but they do things their way and that's what makes them so great they've got a singular person at the top of the company that has a vision and sticks with that and does it their way or the highway and a lot of times I think having that much um kind of belief in what you're doing and really standing behind your own work is as important as anything else because if you don't like your own work when no one else is gonna like it jeff did you have a question jesse it's that maybe you could talk a little about big ideas that have engagement aspects willing to do it using social media is that part of part of your charter and things you try to get involved in? I mean, I definitely like looking for a social angle is like, it seems like one of the most important things that everybody does now it's like you almost don't want to put an idea out if there's not some type of engagement are social component to it. Um, so yeah, we're definitely always looking for that and whether it's, you know, with an event that we're doing trying to create some type of a contest or a game, what you hear the word game of education a lot, I think, uh, game ification is a term that comes up a lot now, I think, and that again, getting back that idea of fun and making things interactive and finding ways where your audience is going to be able to participate. So, yeah, I think definitely looking for those opportunities wherever they are and it's finding something that you know, your fans are going toe like toe participate in and creating those opportunities for them to have have a hand in your brand I think it's really important we have when you do that, though, how much of a challenge is it too? Maintain the brand tone and voice when it becomes a little bit like the wild wild last one you know it's definitely hard I think especially if you're leading brands make letting your kind of your collective fan base make decisions I think that can be hard as funny you see that now like there's been a couple examples in the last few years of uh big brands trying to redo their logos and hitting like medic feedback yeah yeah uh there was a big thing with the london olympics actually two or there's this massive outcries from the fan base with like brand trying to redo its its logo ah and you actually then saw the brands go back and go back to their old logo because uh because of their fan base was so intense about it and I think you know what was that good or bad? I don't know you know I mean somebody obviously decided that the top of gaps somewhere that they wanted to refresh and make a change and and maybe they would have been better to stick with it versus letting kind of everybody decide for that so I think it's it's hard you know, I think tio draw that line maybe it's ok? Because you know, maybe it's it's like any pr is good pr get in front of my nose pop chips and he did this really cool thing with a solicited videos to become the vice president of social media under aston kouchner who has brought in is sort of the head and they got something like one hundred fifty thousand videos and some were wildly creative and they all posted and some of it went viral and so you know, maybe it just doesn't matter if they spell your name, right? Yeah, you know, I think so I think it's just about again it's about what you want your brand to be jesse just for a moment we have andrea eighty design who's wondering how do you keep it fresh? What is inspiring you to keep your creative fresh and not suffering creative burnout? Uh I definitely I always encourage designers that I work with. Travel I think is a huge thing. Changing your environment and travel could even just be getting out of from behind your desk. You know, it could be taking an offsite lunch and working at the museum or on the waterfront or whatever it is. But even more than that going toe a new city or a new country and really taking you know, I think creating a zone within your company whether that's budget or time whatever it means for kind of travel research and development I think is really important toe keep creative people inspired uh I think making sure that there's always a healthy kind of dose of stuff so whether that's magazines and videos you know, making sure that the people in your department are collaborating and working and and sharing ideas you know, what's the latest music show they went to and what's the coolest poster they've seen lately so just encouraging that kind of cross pollination of ideas I think is really important to you that's great and just a really quick follow up on that because you touched on it. What sources do you go to like, what the specific question was, what brands besides virgin do you feel a really kind of on the edge of modern branding and creative? Um I mean, I definitely look at a lot of the fashion brands I think do pretty cool stuff whether it's and illustration and design or video so levi's is always one that I thought was pretty cool. Uh nike I definitely having worked there I get they always do pretty interesting stuff whether it's, you know, interactive mobile type design all the way till like, shoes that air really interesting materials and what not, um I love to check out video stuff there's a sight that I go to pre frequently actually called him oceanographer dot com where it's kind of like a scraping of like the top kind of videos that are being done by kind of the creative universe so it's all of the top production companies and animators and designers and you know like the titling sequence toe iron man or like some crazy kids you know student video so it's pretty fun place that to see like lots of different videos stuff but that's really solely centered around kind of creative stuff um that's great all right so we are soon we're gonna be having a call with mike from dollar shave but I wanted to talk about a couple other creative ideas before we go to that so spanks thanks is now billion dollar brand but when I was preparing for this class I was reading about a whole bunch of different start ups and you know I really like the idea of what are you doing different or better in your company and the founder of spanx is she actually used to take her nylons and cut off the bottom of them before she had invented spanx and she would wear them so that she could have the you know the flat no panty line and then is this embarrassing that we're talking about the lines were alright time by having I have this problem all the time vani lines but so this was the creative that she started with where it was basically a before and after this is what was happening with the normal underwear and this is what's happening with spanx this is not an expensive thing to produce right but you get the idea that's how she launched her company so I guess the point is is that creative doesn't have to be this like overwhelming, you know, huge production if you have a good product in a good idea that supports it some of the ideas going come forward so you know, I think this is just a good example of a simple idea now that's not executed in this like brilliant design way but there's certainly an idea there oh sure, I mean, it kind of maybe goes back to some of the you know, buzz words you had on your list of getting which is like simplicity, honesty, you know, having a good idea and just putting it out there in a really kind of simple, truthful way which is like, you know, this situation is not ideal you can make it better whatever so right? That was a very eloquent way of saying thank you for that so we are going to be doing dollar shave club next I think some of you know, the brand if your international and you're watching this around the country, what I would say is that you should go on we're going to show the video but what's interesting because I have chatted with mike before I'll give you a little bit of the background before we have them online, but so mike used to be a video og refer and he actually was approached this sounds like a joke, but it's true, he was approached by a rabbi who said, I've got a couple of cartons of razors do you want to help me unload these razors and start a business? And, you know, we can check this with him, they don't have my facts straight and he said, because he was a brand guy he wanted to, he said, I'll do it, but I want to have a brand I don't want to be like buy razors, dot com I want actually create a club and have something that's kind of, you know, manly and more of a feeling around it, so he came up with this is mike here? He came up with this idea for a video you know, had some video production background launched it in his first week, I think he had about four million views on the video, as I told you before was scaling the site went down because he wasn't ready for that kind of thing you think he was in in on vacation with his family in colorado, like wondering what was going to happen? They're like, oh my god, this thing is going crazy, so you never know when an idea is going to hit and we are gonna watch it, I'm not sure for ready to watch it yet but we're gonna watch the video. We're ready for that yet. So should I advance forward? Hi. I'm mike, founder of dollar shave club dot com what is dollar shave club dot com? Well, for a dollar a month, we sent high quality razors right to your door. Yeah, a dollar are the blades any good? No are played great. Each razor has stainless steel blades and allah vera, lubricating strip and a bit ahead. It's, so gentle in tyler could use it. And do you like spending twenty dollars a month on brand name razors? Nineteen go to roger federer. I'm gonna tennis. Do you think your razor needs a vibrating handle? A flashlight back scratcher and ten blades. You're handsome as grandfather had one blade and polio. Stop paying for shaved. Thank you. Don't need and stop forgetting by your blades every month. One hundred dollars going to ship. Right, tio? We're not just selling razors. We're also making new jobs. I one hundred. What were you doing last month? Not working. What are you doing now? Waiting. I'm no vanderbilt, but this train makes hay. Just stop forgetting to buy your blades every month and start deciding where you're gonna stack all those dollar bills I'm saving you were dollar shave club, dot com and the party is on see you so before we bring mike on I just want to hear kind of your thoughts as a creative person and also here in the audience but why do you think that's so successful? Because it's fun I mean everything from the copy of the script to the random props I mean it's just you can tell he had fun making it so I think to me that's like watching it it's just it feels original it feels uh effortless it's not taking itself too seriously uh and it's ah really inventive even like does the word shaved tech exists? I don't know I thought that was pretty funny. So um yeah it's I think it's it's just it's embracing that idea that you know on idea doesn't have to be elaborate and crazy to be great that it should just be fun and really take ah different approach to something emily and it's it's a video that you want to share like I would want to share that with my friends because I think it's hilarious. And then I also was wondering are women allowed to be a part of the dollar shave club like I think I think you can but you're gonna have to ask mike that so we'll have him on the line in a couple minutes not do any of you remember seeing that ad I have shared that a thousand times like that is my favorite video ever like I always tell people how genius it is I'm like I want to make a video like this one this is how I want ours to be exits genius to me so tell me what is it that you think is genius about? I just it's so original it's completely different it's so off beat that you're not expecting it and um his personality and it has a lot to do with that I think it was his acting you know? You know how he stayed so serious, you know, the sense of humor was was very funny, but I just like really creative off beat types of things great great doesn't make you want to join the dollar shave club I tried I actually tried but it was actually that first week and it was down so and then later on I signed up and they were on back order and it was like for a long time and then my husband and I talked afterwards and I haven't gone back, which is horrible, but I did did it did make me want to do it I'm just going to say I would talk to respect for what he did it's it's irreverent I love you said jesse it doesn't take itself too seriously, but at the same time, you know there's wildly creative things that don't get a point across and that totally gets his point across about ten times throughout so it's solid I think too he doesn't he doesn't come across as though he's trying too hard to sell you on it he's making a statement you know, we're sort of put off by the fact when companies try to push a product to you like sort of that car salesman mentality and that's the complete opposite you know it's lighthearted makes you laugh and it sort of kind of exudes that vibe it's it's very similar to the old spice commercials I don't know if you've seen those you know we're going the show let's let's spring mike on so that we can share our great feedback with him can't wait way how our border oh my gosh, I miss you I miss you too, how's everything going? You look great, you're very tiny but you look great so funny we just watched your video and I don't know if your ears were burning, but people love it. Lewis was just saying that she's shared it a thousand times and she thinks it's the best video she's ever seen? Well, that's great is that the same lady who who? So I'm trying to sign up back in march of last year and they never came back ah, that wouldn't be so you were listening so you've got the conversation I did were here so women can sign up a swell, but the question was women can women sign up? Yes. Ok, well, you know, I have a couple questions for you, mike. First of all, congratulations, the business is growing. I know that you've got all sorts of things going on. A lot of people have asked you, how do you make a video go viral? And I think that your great creative in the script and kind of the execution was part of it, but did you do anything else to seed kind of the viral ality of the video? Uh, sure. So there's there's a couple things that way benefitted from the day of the launch, and one of those was that we launch a new business with some investors who the press is interested in, and so the tech press cover are launched that day on we had a great visual asset in the video to tell that story to help tell that story s o we benefited from that also, it was a slow news day. There were no meteors in russia on dso, we didn't have to compete with any major news events. Also, I think we lost that video purposely on the eve of south by southwest two thousand twelve so that's time of year, when everybody is kind of thinking south and digital and innovative and creative and you know, we wanted to get ahead of that because there wasn't really anything to talk about yet related tio technology or south by so we basically we launched two days before the festival last year and that I think gave people something to talk about and spread virally were spread socially, I should say so we I think we benefited from the coverage in our pr team did a great job of getting the video out there to people that would be interested and then I think also, you know, this doesn't answer your question is exactly, but I think what are our video did? Was it told I told a story on dh and you know, it told a story that guys are parr used to well in understanding that story, but the gravis the soil for for this business was very fertile guys have been frustrated for a long time with the price of brandon razors and going to the store to buy them takes too much out of your day it's been asked so so are the soil was hurdle for for that story to be told, I should say, did you ask influencers to kind of re tweet and kind of like seed the influence or community to did you do that? No way did not on I think that, you know, we lost every knew there was one employees we didn't social marketing machine we did not have employees when we had some interns and we had some, uh some business folk that were helping us out on the side but but they did not weigh didn't have an infrastructure and I think that you know, because we didn't go after influencers um I think because we didn't go after influencers we we benefited from kind of that homegrown vibe you know, so very organic, very natural I think you told me that were you skiing or on vacation with your family and you didn't know what was gonna happen is that right? Well, no right before right before I lost the video I was in park city skiing with my family and then I came back on sunday night and we watched the video that tuesday, ok? And so what would you have done differently? Anything or are you do you look back and think oh my god, that was incredible I was so lucky. Yeah, I think definitely be we're so lucky if anything I would have ordered uh you know, I would have ordered more help and I would have certainly had more inventory on hand and I would have cranked our servers up to eleven ah, what time did you launch the video? Did you lookinto the timing of it was in the morning you know, midday afternoon yes, so that's a good question on you know a lot of people a lot of people don't think about when the right time to launch something whether it whether it's an email or a piece of creative for anything is, um that's a very important thing we launch it at six thirty a m pacific so nine thirty a m on march sixth, two thousand twelve and and we did that because, you know, my philosophy kind of is, you know, at monday everybody's digging out of their inbox nobody's thinking about the next hot thing necessarily they're not thinking about affording around much socially um tuesday they come in by nine thirty everyone's kind of after desks and they're energized for the week and they're kind of ready to go so that's why we picked that time tuesday is known as a pretty good day for forgetting news too and press a lot of people picked tuesday's um jesse any one thought that I have for you mike is how much of your brand kind of feeling and positioning did you have developed before the video and what kind of came out of the video? Um I I always knew that I always believed in the power of video to tell a story and I had written that script you know, a couple months before we ended up shooting it which is about six months before we launched it um and I think what came out of that video was a great uh you know, the early the early as it were you know, all we had to do is all we had to do really was go back to that as our north star as our compass on say does it does it that does it stand up to that? But does it honor that? Does it feel like it would come out of that video? Is it a logical extension of that? Obviously as we as we grow and launch new products you know, things will change and evolve, but I think uh, you know what that video gave us was, you know, as close to a brand biology could get for their early days great great now I know you're your strategy lately with videos is that you don't want to overuse video I've seen you using a lot of social media you're doing a lot of contests you're getting people in through email but tell me, why are you not just doing video after video after video since you had a success? I think a lot of young companies make the mistake of stepping up to the microphone too often and they end up drowning out john in themselves out and people ask me, what are you going to do a second video? And, you know, of course we're going to do a second video but um you know, I can I'm not going to give it away but you know, it's not going to be it's not going to be about the razors because it's it doesn't it's that nothing really tells the story of a cz cleanly and it's simply is the original video does into launch anything else would really drowned that out I think so, yeah, we are anxious tio recapture the power of social and um and step up to the microphone again, but it doesn't it doesn't make any sense for us to do that until we have something really new, fresh and exciting to say senator, do we have a question jeff like this jeffs cult was that was that ah conscious effort to formulated brand voice or was that just your personality that organically landed on the page? Um that's it's a good question and that's that's that's basically me um I mean, I don't talk like that all the time, but, uh, you know, I think I think with you if you saw my facebook, my personal facebook feed around the time the video large people would say, uh, yeah that's uh that's that's in that's of course that's him that's what he does well, you know, I remember when I met you in person for the first time, I not that I was laughing about it, but you really remind me of the character the guy at the person in the video so I do think that you're your brand is very similar to who you are as a person too, so it was good I was so what do you guys doing now? Marketing wise, you had this great piece of creative how are you maintaining and keeping the momentum? Um sure, so since since we launched that video in march of last year says about a year ago um, we've taken on a staff and we've raised more money and what we're doing right now is we're trying to blow his much awareness into the top of the funnel as possible on then make make those dollars a sufficient as possible by by re targeting folks that don't convert through through email so they will come to the site they'll put in their email address and if they don't end up making a purchase and they enter what we call the re marketing flow the email re marketing flow and we send them a bunch of on brand funny e mails designed to get them to convert and get them excited about the brand like hey, why haven't you come over here yet or are you nigerian royalty? You must be because how else are you affording to pay top dollar for uh for um for razors so uh, you know it's it's it's we're putting a lot of money into awareness and then making sure that we make it as efficient as possible with some of the cheaper digital stuff right now. This morning I was talking to people a lot about figuring out their cost per acquisition and what they could afford to spend on each person that was coming in and why it's really important to get the email but you guys obviously have it down to a science now you are retargeting you're getting the e mails, but how? How much does analytics play into kind of your process? Sure, um analytics is very important data is very important we are still trying to get better at it because all the information enemy is there it's being recorded but given the tech the technical limitations that we have the resource is limitations that we have, you know, we can always pull the data out the way we want to as fast as we want. Tio s oh that's just the challenge for startup that's you know, part for the course but, you know, wait no a lot of information about our our members both from google analytics from some some stuff that we've done with experian on dh so we have a pretty good idea of who our guy and our girl is and we use that every day experian are you looking at a zip code since that what you're looking at, we have the zip codes from from folks mailing addresses because we send in the package every month or every mother month if they're on the not so harry plan what? Well, I really really appreciate you being with us today, ok last question for you first well like thank you that was one more question from the internet and then I have one question but did you have any fear about it where you like oh my gosh, I'm going to do this and spend all these resource is or did you have like complete confidence? I'm going to go for it and you just were moving forward I think I think that's what the entrepreneur does, I think yeah in the back of your mind you always have doubt from sure meat do you and there's a conversation going on about fun. So do you have any ideas around? Maybe for all of you, said gestion zahn, making videos engaging when fun isn't necessarily appropriate for what that business or brand is so for example, dealing with health issues or such so had what some thoughts on that? Yeah, I think that's um I think that's really a good question and I think they're there plenty of videos that go viral that have no humor in them at all um you know, it just really has to do with connecting to your being true to what your what your mission is I mean, I've seen, you know, twenty the day that we launched our video was also the day that that kony that joseph kony video came out, which I know you guys have have all probably seen and that went viral that's, that's not funny at all that's the most serious things I've ever seen so it's it's really just about I guess the tips that I would have would be number one keep it short as short as possible because nobody wants to watch that we want to watch your ten minute video number two make sure that it's, you know, identified a problem that you're solving and, um way there we go, come back, uh, identify the problem that you're solving and, um and make sure that you're being very direct about that I think I heard somebody in the audience here save right before I came on, but you know, I think that we make the point over and over and over again about why dollar shave club is a better way to solve a very important need for guys, and I think you just need to be very clear and very brief obviously there are many successful wherever it is that air longer than a minute and a half but I think you just need to be honest with yourself when you're editing and it's an old english writing trick, you have to murder your darlings, but be honest with yourself and say, are you going to you know, do you need to say everything you think you need to say or can you make it shorter? So that's what I said, yeah, great. Emily has one last question. Is emily silver gonna have one more question? Where did you post this? Is you posted on facebook? Did you post on youtube's you both twitter? Um, we put it on youtube and, uh and that was it way certainly posted the link on our facebook age, and we certainly tweeted it out, but, you know, at that point, we didn't have any followers, so that wasn't what did well, what so thank you, mike into everybody that's watching there are razors available, so go to dollar shave club and go get your razors now, it's a great company, a great brand, lots of exciting things coming from you guys in the future. So thanks for being with us today really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. All right, so that was fun, right he's so inspiring, and I think that it also is just a really great example of simple it was a lot of things that we were talking about it's on brand, he was doing something that is different in a category figuring out how to change that, who would have thought that razor's could be branded or communicated in that kind of way? And so I think that you have to just really challenge yourself, what can I do with my business? That's different? What can I do that can bring it to the forefront in a way that's going to be memorable? So it's, pretty exciting, you know, I think to one thing that I would because that you hear it a lot, people saying, I want to make a viral video or let's do a viral, I almost would never use that word, and I don't think you make a viral video, I think you make a good video, and it goes viral if you're lucky, right? So I think thinking you're going to make a viral video, you've already probably limited yourself from ever doing it. I think you just I don't think he thought this is going to be viral. I think he just thought let's, make this really funny video and that's cool and like, he said it told the story, and it was funny, and it got right to the point, and he had fun making it all those things, or what made the video ultimately viral I think not that he ever thought this is going to be a viral video so I think trying to kind of like remove that word from your uh from your dialogue is probably help well, I think coming from passion and creativity is probably a better place to be right and just till I kind of let those ideas really come out jeff segment to talk about this but I'm very interested in this subscription model that he's he's taken on and just wondering, you know, some of the some of the secret sauce behind that and then also I would imagine that just from late sheer laziness that there's a really low drop off of people you know, saying disengaging from it you know, the lasers common just continues to happen I think I think that was subscriptions a lot of people especially the seas do like the subscription model because people are going to give the credit card then they're going to get busy and maybe they don't realize until six months later you know, a year later oh do I really need to have this? Um so subscription models are big right now we've got birchbox there's one where you can get a subscription with your dog like dog products and a lot of people are doing them very tailored very niche so I think there's still, you know, a lot of benefit to that idea and one that we're going to see more of I think people are looking for more and more ways to automate their yeah, the things that they don't want to take time doing food's e you could even get a lot of different things, and I think that's it it's time and ease and like that's, what the ap mentality is right, we use aps that make our lives easier and more manageable the same thing with the subscription boxes, but we will talk about that a little bit tomorrow because mike who's joining us has a subscription product that he just launched on kickstarter, so we'll go through that, so we're wrapping up day one. So wow, what a fun day one we went through branding business basics, naming legal and creative, and I'm so glad that you came to join us. It was really wonderful having you here, and I don't know if you have any other questions that you want tio order, we would love to take some time for now internet on ants and stewed studio audience to go back on things kind of throughout the day now that they've heard the whole whole day, so and our first question is actually probably more for you, jessie, so well for both of you, but several people have been asking what is a wire frame? If you could just clarify that back when we were talking about the creative brief in creative process, okay, yeah, a wire frame I mean, normally I think that term is used, um along the process of developing some type of digital thing, whether it's a website or an app for an experience, whatever it is, but it's a term normally used in the kind of web development process and basically what it is it's like it's, almost like an architect's blueprint, I think is why the closest thing it's it's, a very simple, clean way to just lay out the elements that you want to have in this digital piece so it's, not anything really that's going to relate to design necessarily, like you're not worried about shapes or colors, or even necessarily where things are it's more to just make sure that you've got all the most important elements on the page somewhere and that you've kind of put them in the right spot so that you can identify what we're gonna need it you know about this much space for and have our we're gonna need about this much space for the, you know, home page, carousel or whatever you want to have, and so it's just starting to map out the elements um, of ah web project and to do it in a really clean way as a retail store owner, what should I do to connect with my community? We're talking about branding and right um well, I would have lots of questions for that person kind of you know what kind of store they have, what kind of product offering but I guess what I would think about first is we're going to talk about the sunday three is that your experience in the store is really important and so I would map out all of the touch points in the store what's happening when they come through what's happening at the register you know, if there's a dressing room what's happening there little things can make a difference at virgin america we put flowers now they couldn't afford fresh flowers and so it was a plastic flower that was at the check in but that and a little red carpet and all of a sudden somebody feels like a pipe. So map out your customer journey in the retail experience also think about the database try to figure out some way to communicate with them we either want their email we want them to follow us on facebook now I'm against you know the follow me on facebook everywhere follow me on twitter everywhere because I think that it can be overwhelming but try to get some kind of two way engagement with the guests to the person coming and also you know thank them. And make sure that they know that you really appreciate their business. I think a lot of times simple things like a smile or eye contact can make a world of difference in terms of the experience. Great. Thank you. That is amazing. Before we leave today, do you have any final thoughts? You want to just kind of wrap it up, put a bow on today? Um, and but people now they're what they should be taking away from. From what we learned to this. Sure. Well, first. Well, thank you to everybody that watched and came and for all of the guests. But what I hope is that the content today, what we were trying to do was to get you to think about the foundation and really kind of laying the framework of your business. That's. Why? We went through kind of the core attributes we have the funnel test. We talked about a lot of things that you should do with naming and legal. All these things are really important because look at mike's example when that video went viral, do you think he had time to go back and do all his legal paperwork with his business partner, you need to be prepared, and you need to be ready.

Class Description

Every successful business needs to have a clear brand message. Porter Gale is a consultant and former VP of marketing for Virgin America. In this class she’ll teach you everything you need to know to a business idea all the way to the front pages of major publications.

This class condenses 20 years of knowledge in creative development, social media, email marketing and PR and delivers it all in concise, easy to follow steps.

During this class, Porter will discuss:

Naming your company

Creating a corporate culture

Multi-channel marketing and more!

She’ll share the stage with entrepreneurs from some of the world’s most innovative brands, like Virgin America, Dollar Shave Club, and Hint Water. You’ll learn how the pros build a brand through interviews, case histories, resource lists, and how-to tips.

A successful business brand understands its ideal customers and employs a team that consistently finds a way to stand out in the crowd. Learn how to build that brand from Porter Gale.

a Creativelive Student

Thank You so much Porter Gale I have learned so much you made me view everything in a more professional way seeing how the big boys do it made me realize the steps that need to be taken for success. You are a very smart thank you again for sharing your knowledge I have the title of your book stuck in my head I think is powerful.

a Creativelive Student

This is an excellent course which delivers so much key information to developing your brand. Highly recommended!